Black Absinthe, to be precise, eighty-five per cent. The sides of the bottle were stained black where the drink had dripped down the sides; the green fairy on the label was split neatly in two.
We were sitting in a circle out on Top Field in the chilly early spring air, taking shots from the bottle cap.
It was Myfanwy Lewis’s first night out with us, ever. She was sitting opposite the circle to me, with her perfectly made up face and pristine shirt and jeans.
I wanted to mess her up. I think we all did.
She knew she had something to prove to us, you could see it in her eyes. So she gulped down six shots without even smudging that pillarbox red lipstick of hers.
Brigitte sat in my lap after a while, and she let me touch her up as we watched Myfanwy sway in and out of focus again and again before being engulfed in that wall of lust that surrounded Adam.
We were all a little bit coated in it, I think.
It was a cold night, and our breath hung like mist in the crisp air, but the absinthe filled our veins with fire and everyone shed a layer or so. Save Myfanwy the Perfect, we all knew each other well. There were no secrets among us.
Brigitte was a perfect being.
Not the same kind of perfect as Myfanwy, not by a long shot.
Brigitte’s perfection was harder to find, and even when you found it, you couldn’t name it.
It was something about the way she held her tiny figure. Something about the way you felt when you held that tiny figure. It was a little how she bit her plump lips. The fact that no matter what you did she seemed so innocent.
How she fit in the world so well.
Whatever it was, it had me well and truly hooked.
Sam, Alex, Jordon and all the others, well they were good. They had their strengths, and they were sweet, but Brigitte made me feel as though I was a world away.
I won the right to take her back to the old warehouse I called home, the warehouse I was loath to let the others stay in.
It was a squat, but it was my squat. The first thing I did when I found it was make it secure.
Boarded up the windows with whatever I could find, made sure the doors were all shut and locked properly, made sure there were no other points of access.
I’m not too up on the law surrounding these things, but I’m pretty sure that made it legally mine.
Only then did I begin to make in a home.
Brigitte was probably the most familiar with it out of all our group, but she was the least presumptuous. She expected to be denied access every time she knocked on the iron door, or to be chucked out the second we were done.
It’s funny, you see, because she’s probably the only one I’d allow to stay there with me forever.
We didn’t get up to much that night, though, the night Myfanwy first came out with us.
We passed out on the mattress and slept like deadmen the night through.
You see, the point is, that was the night Myfanwy joined us for good.
She wasn’t one of us, that was for sure, but Adam was willing to overlook that fact, so we were too.
If we’d never let her in we would have probably stayed in our little corner of North London.
We’d all be whole, uninjured.
Brigitte would never have found out that I love her.
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